Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[eriksp92]

The Norwegian NCs are always split in two, with the relay, sprint, skiathlon and 10/15 km held during part 1 in January/February and team sprint, 5/10 km and 30/50 km held during part 2 in March/April.

In other news, Ragnhild Haga retires after this season, which I think is a wise move after a surprising and unlikely win in the 50k she's unlikely to repeat in coming seasons anyway.

 

[dobrien]

In other news, Ragnhild Haga retires after this season, which I think is a wise move after a surprising and unlikely win in the 50k she's unlikely to repeat in coming seasons anyway.

Very wise move but sad to see; she was always one of my favorites. But talk about going out on a high note; that's the way to do it. Good luck to her.

 

[Silhouette]

Why was there only a 5km classic individual start for the Women at the Norwegian NC, lack of snow?
The snow situation at the Italian one in Toblach is terrible, weather wise we're one month ahead compared to usual. They had to shorten some races, change all the races to skating races and use shorter laps. On the "bright" side both the women's and the men's mass start races got turned into individual start races, 20km for the women, 30km for the men.

It's probably because of the weird situation where the world cup is testing new distances while the world and Norwegian national championships have kept the old competition formats.

I doubt there are problems with snow in Tolga, I guess they have about the same amount of snow as as where I live and that's 50+ cm. It's been snowing a lot this winter and temperatures are still well below 0C at night.

I wish there was a way to redistribute some of this snow (and amount of skiers, the number of competitors are very high) to countries further south.

 

[Mayomaniac]

So Wierer won't retire and she was at the Italian XC NC to support Sanfilippo (who won the sprint and the teamsprint).

The whole day (yesterday) was ruined by tragedy. While the Folie sisters competed in the team sprint (Ylvie finished 2nd in the junor race) their mother died under an avalance and the whole award ceremony was cancelled.

The men's team sprint was won by De Fabiani and Gabrielli, who had almost managed to surprise Pellegrino in the sprint final by going full gas from the start, but was beaten in the end. Hellweger finished 3rd, after doing yet another impressive qualifier (he was 7th in the world cup one in Tallin) where he finished first, ahead of Pellegrino.

 

[BullsFan22]

FIS doing FIS things, they keep shortening everything. Now the men’s relay will be shortened at major championships, from 4x10 to 4x7.5. I wouldn’t be shocked if they make the sprints shorter as well. How long will the 50km last? Surprised they haven’t lowered it to 20.

 

[OJRvE]

So an all Nordic December in the new calendar. Trondheim could be great, and would make a nice addition even after the WCH but Ruka, Gällivare and Östersund are really depressing. Dark, cold and no audience.

I am aware of the snow situation but a top FIS priority should be to find new venues for December.

https://www.fis-ski.com/en/cross-country/cross-country-news-multimedia/news/2022-23/fis-cross-country-committee-spring-meetings

 

[BullsFan22]

So much for trying to ‘globalize’ the sport…

 

[KZD]

The last FIS congress or whatever its called confirmed what we expected that the individual and skiathlon races are going to be reduced to 10k and 20k in the World Championships making it equal for both genders. It seems that FIS thinks that Klæbo's dominance in the World Cup is not enough and should be extended to the World Championships as well and given that in 2025 they are going to be held in Trøndheim, so I expect an easy course, I wouldn't be surprised if he wins 5 gold medals even if the Russians come back. IOC is still going to make a decision about the distances in the Olympics but I see no reason to expect anything different.

Another change will be the creation of the FIS games in 2028 which will unite 16 different sports under the FIS umbrella. I personally like a season in which the skiers focus 100% on the World Cup so I don't really like this idea and don't think that will do much to increase the number of viewers especially if the races remain the same that we see during the rest of the season.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Hmmm, that will also freeze Quebec, Sweden and Finland out of hosting as well I assume, given the lack of mountains of sufficient size for the downhill?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Hmmm, that will also freeze Quebec, Sweden and Finland out of hosting as well I assume, given the lack of mountains of sufficient size for the downhill?

FIS is run by an incompetent crook who only cares about Alpine skiing and still manages to ruin that sport, no surprise.

It's sad if freaking Northug is the voice of reason when it comes to race formats, distances and Central Europe loosing any interest in the sport.

Meawhile the internal drama with the Norwegian team and it's budget cuts is interesting, to say the least. Iivo is also no longer training with the Finnish team. On the Italian team the technical director Alfred Stauder left because of internal politics and hasn't been replaced. At least Cramer is still the headcoach and coach of the WC team (Dapra, Mocellini, Barp, Pittin & Franchi are now on that team from the start of the season).

Also, the more I hear about Karlsson the more I'm convinced that she and Poromaa deserved eachother...